From Clyde Wilson at the Abbeville Institute.
Anyone who is serious about the direction of this country ought to admit that the stance of the Homeland Security apparatus rests upon the staggeringly powerful force of conformity that is a major component of the American national character. Our two greatest foreign observers—Tocqueville in the 19th century and Solzhenitsyn in the 20th—were both struck by the herd tendencies of American thought and the rareness of individuality, the near universal craving for respectability within the mass. Unless one grasps this sad truth, he is disabled in understanding current events. Central government targeting of domestic dissidents could not be floated without an expectation of widespread approval. It rests upon the certainty that a substantial part of the populace will countenance the suppression of ideas and persons that violate what has been declared to be respectable.
Likely so, but no matter. These liberal-left masses are craven and will depend on those who serve the Deep State in law enforcement to do their bidding. As Edward Snowden reminds us, however, "there are more of us than there are of them." Not only that, there is a deep divide in American law enforcement and the American military over these matters. Ponder the implications of that one.